Two citizens have paid to journey around the moon in 2018. The brochure details how the ship will loop around the moon, move close to the lunar surface and fly off into deeper space. There will be no landing on the moon’s surface, although they will come close enough the see the clangers.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that the tourists had "already paid a significant deposit" towards this once in a galaxy experience. He described it as a wonderful opportunity for "humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years". The USA has not sent astronauts to the moon since the early 1970s.
The identities of the first space trippers is unknown, but Mr Musk assured reporters it was not a movie star: "Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year."
The space ship allocated to take the two tourists into space is set to undertake an unmanned test flight this year. There will then be a manned mission in the second quarter of 2018. The project is run in close cooperation with NASA.
The passengers will go further and faster into the solar system that ever before and this inevitably comes with risks: "They're certainly not naive, and we'll do everything we can to minimise that risk, but it's not zero" Mr Musk said. Mr Branson attempted a similar venture with his Virgin Galactic enterprise, which planned to send tourists on sub-orbital flights in the vehicle SpaceShipTwo for $250,000 a seat. However the vehicle was destroyed in a crash in 2014.
As the world of space becomes purchasable, it presents exciting opportunities for the near future. The intergalactic school trip could truly be a possibility.
Want to stay a little more earth bound and a little more in budget? Leicester is home to the National Space Centre. Plan an outing there with our trip planning system.
